Her appearance on Madi Diaz’s “Don’t Do Me Good” marks her third collaboration this year
We’re in the last stretch of 2023, but Kacey Musgraves has one more duet to sing on: Madi Diaz’s “Don’t Do Me Good.”
The track is the latest single off Diaz’s upcoming album Weird Faith, following last month’s “Same Risk.” It’s a heart-wrenching ballad about accepting that a relationship has run its course, complete with a stunning melody and subtle instrumentation. When Musgraves enters on the second verse, her buttery vocals make the words all the more crushing: “Without the make-believe, the ‘what will be’ will be/What gives me the right to keep dreamin’?/Without the dark, maybe there will be no stars/Just broken floating parts for us to believe in.”
Now, to be clear, Diaz doesn’t need a guest vocalist to make her songs great. She’s a veteran Nashville songwriter who knows how to craft introspective, tight verses and set them to addictive choruses that border on the mystical. This is her thing. But just as she does on Zach Bryan’s “I Remember Everything” and Noah Kahan’s “She Calls Me Back,” Musgraves takes the track to an otherworldly level, as both women join forces to sing about their unwillingness to throw the towel in despite knowing they should call it quits. You’ll be playing this one over and over again.
“I wanted this song to feel like calling your friend,” Diaz said in a statement. “That moment of needing to commiserate and to have that person say ‘yeah, I’ve been there’ and share that experience with you …This song would have been so awfully lonely without her and I am so grateful I get to hear her voice on this with mine.”
Bryan’s “I Remember Everything” debuted at Number One on the Billboard 100 — a first for both Bryan and Musgraves — while Kahan’s spent a week at Number 76. Although “Don’t Do Me Good” doesn’t have a line as potent as “You’re drinkin’ everything to ease your mind/But when the hell are you gonna ease mine?”, we won’t be surprised if it takes off. All three collaborations are a testament to what Musgraves’ presence can do to a song. Now we just need her to release a new album.